SUSPEND BELIEF

Do people really think they can do research with nothing or are they just mean? The amount of people that have asked me to see how far back their family can be traced but don’t like having to pay £10 for each certificate.

Most of the time spent doing family history at the moment is checking that all the information on the census forms is there [which usually means inputting all the info again] because of the changeover from Windows to Mac and the problems that has created.

Not much done today on the genealogy front because of MS problems. But what bit I have done shows that where we now live was once owned by a family with the same name was my mothers’.  So are we actually living on our own land?  I will investigate further.

Back to checking the census returns and gathering what I can information wise.

Of course it has to be remembered that ancestors weren’t always honest and also a lot depended [especially in the earlier years] on how the enumerator worded the question.  What do you do for a living? Is not the same as What job do you do?  An illustration of which is the occupation for one wife is put as ‘sewing children’s stockings’.  Does that mean that she was an out-worker at the local stocking factory or that at that moment in time she was sewing?

Another thing that I realised was just how Certificates and Parish Records plot the movements of our ancestors.  They may have been living at 1 address when the census was taken but be at another for a child’s baptism or schooling possibly 5 years after the census and have moved again by the time of the next census.

Brick walls create problems of their own and are mainly caused by either some of the information you already have could be wrong, and it won't always be obvious which clues are the ones that are going to lead you to the solution. Something that appears insignificant (the name of a marriage witness, for example) might be a vital clue, whereas something apparently vital (the name of the bride's father, perhaps) might be a complete fabrication.  A good tactic is that all the information you start with has to be regarded as questionable. I'm not just talking about the stories that were handed down within the family - we all know that they're likely to be wrong - but also about the apparently reliable evidence - the BMD certificates, the military records, the census entries. So my advice is to go back to the beginning and see if something does fit better after a closer look.